Why is Dean excoriated for speaking the truth when * says

[Skidmore]

really outrageous and untruthful things everday? Howard Dean speaks the truth.

[LSdemocrat]

1. The Republican Noise Machine

[Proud_Lefty]

2. That's the problem

This administration has to bastardize truth. When we saw them fighting so hard in 2000 against ensuring that the votes were properly counted was our first clue. As time goes on, they only get more obvious and blatant about it. Michael Moore, Howard Dean, MoveOn.org and Cindy Sheehan are horrible in villians according to them. Why? Because they tell the truth.

[bemildred]

3. Attack the messenger when you can't attack the message. nt

[Skidmore]

4. The Dems do this too. And to the party's detriment, in my

opinion. Why is this occurring?

[bemildred]

6. I'll get flamed. nt

[0007]

8. Never by me! n/t

[bemildred]

9. Nor I you.

:hi:

[Lindacooks]

11. Just curious, do you have an example of a Dem who attacks

another personally instead of arguing on the issues?

[bemildred]

12. You mean here? Or professional politicians?

Lord, there is plenty of it here.

[Lindacooks]

13. I mean professional politicians.

[bemildred]

14. Professional politicians always frame personal attacks as being

about "issues". For example they imply Dean is a "loose cannon" even though they claim to agree with what he says. The "Swift Boat" attacks on Kerry were a perfect example, as were the various attempts to attack Murtha after he spoke up. But there are many, many such, it is a staple of American politics. One of the striking things about American politics is how rarely issues are allowed to intrude into the political process, the public political dialog is almost 100% bullshit and personal attacks, and when some naive politician does attempt to inject issues into the public debate, again e.g. Murtha, Dean, they are uniformly attacked personally so as to avoid discussing the issues they raise.

[Lindacooks]

16. Yes, I understand that, but where are the Democrat personal attacks?

You are talking about Repuke attacks on dems. I was wondering if you had examples of Democratic personal attacks on repukes that even begins to rise (or sink) to their level.

[bemildred]

17. I am talking about both parties.

I would certainly concede that the Democrats are much more, umm, civil about attacking Repbulicans than vice-versa.
Who could forget Willy Horton? And the treatment of the Clintons' in the 1990s was as bad as anything I've ever seen in the mainstream media.

Edit: however, the original poster on this sub-thread (skidmore) appeared to me to be talking about Dem-on-Dem attacks, intra-party power disputes.

[onehandle]

5. Dean is a commie fag.

* is an everyman. He's real people.

[savemefromdumbya]

7. they will attack if the person is a threat

Dean is a threat. Thankfully Dean pointed out that the GOP is a party full of corruption.

[AtomicKitten]

10. You bet he speaks the truth.

You may recall the Repubs apoplectic over the Hitler ad in Moveon's ad contest. They could hardly contain their outrage. Yet I was news-surfing the other day and O'Reilly was calling Dems nazis.

The Republican Party is stuck in junior high school. And they will bitch and moan and complain about anyone that speaks up. We better get used to that and not even consider that viable criteria for choosing a candidate.

[Totally Committed]

15. Anyone in politics, who speaks the truth...

(especially if it is something not all are ready to hear) runs afoul of the American public, whether in his or her Party, or not. Americans have a very hard time hearing the truth. Personally, though, I find truth-telling refreshing, and even empowering. I wish all our politicos would "go there", but only a few really brave truth-tellers are out there now. I value and honor each of them.

TC

[Cha]

18. They want the monkeyjerk in

power cause they can manipulate him. They can't manipulate Dean and that will be the end of their power and it will be the People's Power.

Same with the corporate loving dlc types and their "boiler room" minions.

[No Exit]

19. I was wondering why, too.

[SaveElmer]

20. Dean's job is to get Democrats elected...

Not give the RW talking points. His job is not to make policy pronouncements for the Party...that is a job for the elected leadership. No matter what you think about what he said, he made his point poorly and incompletely.

To his credit he realized this very quickly and took corrective measures the next day.